WASHINGTON – A top executive at Yahoo Inc. has apologized for failing to inform U.S. lawmakers about the circumstances under which the Internet company gave the Chinese government information on one of its users.

Michael Callahan, executive vice president and general counsel at Yahoo, told a House Foreign Relations panel in February 2006 that the company passed information to the Chinese government in 2004 about one of its users without knowledge of why the request was being made. That user, Chinese journalist Shi Tao, was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison for divulging state secrets.

Yahoo has since said the Chinese government did tell the company why it made the request, and that the information about Tao was still handed over.

In a statement released Thursday, Callahan said he learned of the reason for the Chinese government’s request months after testifying before lawmakers but failed to notify them.

“I neglected to directly alert the committee of this new information, and that oversight led to a misunderstanding that I deeply regret and have apologized to the committee for creating,” Callahan said.

Callahan said he had already apologized to members of the House Foreign Relations Committee during meetings. He and Yahoo Chief Executive and co-founder Jerry Yang are to appear before the House panel next week to answer questions about the episode.

Yahoo spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said the problem stemmed from a bad translation of the 2004 Chinese order given to a company lawyer based in the region. The Sunnyvale-based company didn’t get a correct translation until after the 2006 hearing, she said.

Lawmakers only became aware that Yahoo was in possession of the information this year, prompting Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., the chairman of the committee, to announce an investigation into the matter.

Last week, the House panel approved a bill that would criminalize American companies’ cooperating with requests by governments seeking to restrict access to the Internet.

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